The Coalition of Domestic Elections Observers (CODEO) has said if there is any merit in claims that thousands of foreigners are on Ghana’s voters’ register, politicians should be blamed.
[contextly_sidebar id=”T5BIaUkU4sM4wdHHksv7eOJPt02t7GLX”]According to CODEO, the various political parties, in their bid to amass votes encouraged minors and other people to register to vote, adding that such actions have contributed to the bloating of the nation’s register.
The National Coordinator of CODEO, Albert Arhin made the observation on Eyewitness News on Wednesday in response to claims by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) that the nation’s voters register is bloated with names of Togolese, Ivorian and minors.
But the governing National Democratic disagreed saying the claims are baseless and an attempt by the NPP to attack the Volta and Brong Ahafo regions.
Minors and aliens
Albert Arhin noted that “if you visit the Electoral Commission there is a catalogue of minors who have been appearing on the voters’ register. If any political party is serious, they will tell you that when they met at IPAC this was shown to them.”
He insisted that “they are the same political parties who put these minors there, if it is aliens, I will say that, it is these same people, who normally arrange for these aliens there. All of us would have to be sincere so that this thing is nipped in the bud. It is for everybody in this country to realize that it is bad and has to be stopped.”
Clean or replace voters register
The National Coordinator of CODEO again observed that it would be better to either clean or compile a new voters register but lamented apathy on the part of citizens that he said will lead to ineffectiveness of the exercise.
“What I know is that you can clean the voters register but from the past, the experience I have realised is that any time a register is being cleaned and citizens are called to participate the participation has been minimal. Sometimes you will find that some names in some regions are sent to another regions. If these things have been taken seriously, I’m not sure we would have been getting to where we are now. 10% and 20% attendance. So I think we as a nation we have contributed to this mess we are in now. So it’s either a cleaning or a replacement.”
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana